Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
Speaker 1: not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: I said, you're not going to be successful to kill
Speaker 3: them all. Take you out, and then I'm going to
Speaker 3: have to explain to people that I'd rather be tried
Speaker 3: by twelve than carried by six.
Speaker 1: If you follow true crime and have for a while,
Speaker 1: then there's a place in Florida you might be familiar with.
Speaker 1: It's right in the heart of Florida, and it's far
Speaker 1: from the beaches and tourist traps. It's a little place
Speaker 1: called Polk County. It's mostly farmland, chain restaurants and retirement
Speaker 1: communities like the rest of Florida, but you may be
Speaker 1: familiar with the tough on crime press conferences that the
Speaker 1: share to hold, many of which have gone viral over
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. In Bulk County is the
Speaker 1: small city of Auburndale, nestled between Lakeland and winter Haven
Speaker 1: to shitholes by the way. It takes pride in being quiet, friendly,
Speaker 1: and the kind of place where neighbors recognize each other.
Speaker 1: Inside the gates of the Hamptons, a fifty five plus
Speaker 1: country club style retirement community are golf carts, manicured lawns,
Speaker 1: and rows of tiny, pre manufactured homes. At sunset, neighbors
Speaker 1: wave from their front porches as golf carts hum down
Speaker 1: the street. It's quiet, safe, or well it should be.
Speaker 1: But on September eighth, twenty twenty four, just after six
Speaker 1: in the evening, that calm was shattered behind the white
Speaker 1: siding of seventy seven Hewlett Drive. A boy's frantic voice
Speaker 1: reached another one one operator.
Speaker 4: My mom now bleeding out.
Speaker 5: He helped your mom enjoy what my mom's bleeding out?
Speaker 6: He's bleeding out?
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 1: On the call was seventeen year old Colin Griffith. He
Speaker 1: told the dispatcher that his mother needed EMS because she
Speaker 1: was now bleeding out.
Speaker 4: How do I with someone?
Speaker 5: I didn't get into the hospital with someone?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 7: He called number one, So we're going to be an angelus.
Speaker 4: He doesn't have time. He's leaking at she chee's fucking nails.
Speaker 6: Here's that time.
Speaker 1: So now the ambulance couldn't get there fast enough. Colin's
Speaker 1: panic was obvious as he pleaded for them to help
Speaker 1: his mother. She didn't have a lot of time.
Speaker 7: He's bleeding out.
Speaker 1: She's bleeding from my mother, Colin's thirty nine year old mother,
Speaker 1: Kathy was bleeding from the neck and fading fast.
Speaker 4: No peak, unconscious, breathing, No, no.
Speaker 1: If you's not, I don't think why you said she
Speaker 1: was non responsive and not breathing before he said I
Speaker 1: don't think she's alive. Colin's voice trailed off as he
Speaker 1: realized his mother might already be dead. The dispatcher guided
Speaker 1: him through performing CPR. Colin got his mother flat on
Speaker 1: her back, positioned his hands over her heart, and started pumping.
Speaker 1: The dispatcher counted him down.
Speaker 4: Wine true screen or wine true straight horror wine too
Speaker 4: fore moment.
Speaker 1: As the dispatcher relayed information to first responders, Colin continued
Speaker 1: to pump his mother's chest.
Speaker 8: The knife to go on it.
Speaker 1: I know it's difficult to understand, but Colin said, we
Speaker 1: got into a fight. She lunged at me with a knife,
Speaker 1: and she fell on it. He explained it was a
Speaker 1: long and drawn out argument that ended with his mother
Speaker 1: trying to attack him with a knife, but instead she
Speaker 1: tripped and fell on it. She now had a gaping
Speaker 1: wound that was spilling blood until there wasn't any left.
Speaker 2: There's no more blood coming out of the moon set off.
Speaker 1: The wound was so large that the only thing CPR
Speaker 1: had done was helped pump the rest of her blood
Speaker 1: out onto the kitchen floor. Only then did the dispatcher
Speaker 1: instruct him on how to stop the bleeding, get a clean,
Speaker 1: dry towel, and apply pressure to the wound. The only
Speaker 1: thing was she had no blo blood left. It was
Speaker 1: already too late.
Speaker 9: It felt like he fells.
Speaker 1: Even though he himself thought it was already too late.
Speaker 1: Callin followed the dispatcher's instructions until first responders arrived and
Speaker 1: flooded the quiet retirement community with flashing lights and sirens.
Speaker 7: As I walked into the house, I immediately began to
Speaker 7: clear the house as my partner walked up to Colin Griffith.
Speaker 7: And then after clearing the house, is when I walked
Speaker 7: back into the living room area made it known that
Speaker 7: it was clear, and that is when my partner advised
Speaker 7: me to take Colin Griffith outside.
Speaker 8: And while walking into the kitchen, I saw a knife,
Speaker 8: a blood covered knife over in front of the washer
Speaker 8: and dryer. To my left saw the subject in the kitchen.
Speaker 8: In the kitchen, I saw a large pool of blood
Speaker 8: around the subjects head. In that area was spatter going
Speaker 8: up the side of the cabinet.
Speaker 1: Deputies cleared the house so fire and rescue could enter.
Speaker 1: Say they made contact with Colin and immediately noticed something odd.
Speaker 8: For doing normal CPR and everything everybody, assuming everybody's been
Speaker 8: taught and seeing videos on doing CPR from beside, the
Speaker 8: person never overtopped their head, blocking air, possibly blocking airways.
Speaker 1: The home was narrow, no larger than a single wide trailer.
Speaker 1: There wasn't enough room for Colin to kneel next to
Speaker 1: his mother, so he knelt over her head, but from
Speaker 1: the looks of her wound, it didn't matter if he
Speaker 1: was doing it the right way.
Speaker 10: The stabloon itself did not seem to be very wide.
Speaker 10: It was kind of narrow in size. Upon for inspection
Speaker 10: after starting the CPR, it was obvious that every time
Speaker 10: I did a compression there was air that's coming through
Speaker 10: the wound itself, so it was obviously pretty deep. It
Speaker 10: looked like a lot of the vastulature and the stuff
Speaker 10: inside of the wound itself was very obvious and could
Speaker 10: be seen, and that they had cut major areas such as.
Speaker 1: Ars amts rushed inside and surrounded her body, but there
Speaker 1: was nothing they could do. Only thirteen minutes after the
Speaker 1: nine to one one call started, Kathy was pronounced deceased,
Speaker 1: but her cause of death was questionable. The EMTs didn't
Speaker 1: have all the information from the nine to one one call.
Speaker 1: They didn't know about the long fight. All they knew
Speaker 1: was what they saw, and it seemed improbable that Kathy
Speaker 1: tripped and stabbed herself directly in the jugular. The knife
Speaker 1: entered the front part of her neck and exited the
Speaker 1: back left. The entire prospect was too cartoonish. Stranger still
Speaker 1: was Colin's behavior in the moments after her first responders arrived.
Speaker 7: When I first walked him outside, he was a little
Speaker 7: bit frantic, seemed like something was definitely going on. And
Speaker 7: then as he began to explain what happened is when
Speaker 7: he became very calm.
Speaker 10: His demeanor completely changed from my personal experience. It was
Speaker 10: a little odd in nature. He didn't seem very distraught
Speaker 10: or upset. He seemed kind of calm upon my entering
Speaker 10: the residence, and then upon exiting the residence he seemed
Speaker 10: to almost have a not a full argument, but somewhat
Speaker 10: argumentative with the deputies that were trying to assist him
Speaker 10: out of the residence.
Speaker 1: He was calm, too calm. He had just witnessed his
Speaker 1: mother die, but he wasn't distraught, He wasn't even panicked
Speaker 1: like in the nine to one one call. Before deputies
Speaker 1: could ask him any questions, he exclaimed, I know my rights.
Speaker 1: I want an attorney. On the nine to one one call,
Speaker 1: he claimed her death was accidental after he and his
Speaker 1: mom got into an argument that got out of hand.
Speaker 1: Then he asked for a lawyer before any questions could
Speaker 1: be asked. But later he would offer up another explanation.
Speaker 1: He said he was on the floor and his mother
Speaker 1: was on top of him with a knife. She was
Speaker 1: bearing down, ready to stab him, when at the last second,
Speaker 1: he turned the blade towards her and she fell on it,
Speaker 1: just like in the movies. You know, Colin was placed
Speaker 1: in the back of a patrol car as the nervous
Speaker 1: neighbors looked on. Every law enforcement officer who witnessed the
Speaker 1: scene knew Kathy didn't fall on that knife, but the
Speaker 1: only person who could tell them what happened that just
Speaker 1: lawyered up was Kathy, a deranged mother in a homicidal rage.
Speaker 1: Was she mommy dearest? Or was Colin a cold and
Speaker 1: calculated killer. Only a thorough investigation would provide that answer.
Speaker 1: Inside the Hampton's, a quiet retirement community in Auburndale, Florida,
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Colin Griffith called nine to one one.
Speaker 1: A teenager in panic, He begged the dispatcher to save
Speaker 1: his mother as she bled from a wound to the neck,
Speaker 1: But when deputies arrived minutes later, they found it different. Colin,
Speaker 1: his mother, Kathy, lay in the kitchen. It was too
Speaker 1: late to help her, and the boy who sounded so
Speaker 1: desperate on the phone was now composed cold. Even what
Speaker 1: started as a call for help had become a homicide investigation.
Speaker 1: The scene inside the house was grim, but outside, others
Speaker 1: had seen and heard things that would soon cast Colin's
Speaker 1: story in more doubt. Neighbors along Hewlett Drive told investigators
Speaker 1: what they witnessed that evening.
Speaker 11: Let me start from the very starre Yeah, I got
Speaker 11: a phone call yes yesterday from the lady that owns
Speaker 11: the property, Because I do.
Speaker 10: When you see the property, what property are you referring to?
Speaker 4: The white house?
Speaker 12: Okay, the one that's directly across where the dead bees
Speaker 12: are at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what is the name of the lady you spoke with, Susan?
Speaker 4: Susan Durkham. I don't know how she's got a weird
Speaker 4: last name.
Speaker 1: The owner of the home was Colin's grandmother, Susan Debtman.
Speaker 1: She called her neighbor the day before to let her
Speaker 1: know Colin would be arriving and not to worry.
Speaker 11: My grandson is going to be coming to stay at
Speaker 11: my house. I just want to let you know if
Speaker 11: you see a black car in the driveway, it's my grandson.
Speaker 11: And I said, oh, okay, yeah, I know Colin. Yeah,
Speaker 11: no problem. That was the end of the conversation.
Speaker 1: Like any good neighbor, the residents of the Hamptons looked
Speaker 1: out for each other. I mean, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of free time on their hands. It is, after all,
Speaker 1: a retirement community.
Speaker 4: Now, that white car didn't show up till today.
Speaker 12: Do you know whose white car that is?
Speaker 4: As a young lady with dark hair.
Speaker 12: Have you ever seen her before?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've sent her over there before.
Speaker 10: And you don't know who she is.
Speaker 4: Susan said, it's her daughter.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately after Colin's mother arrived, they started arguing.
Speaker 11: This car shows up today and she pulls in the driveway,
Speaker 11: and the kid comes out, and she backs out of
Speaker 11: the driveway and she pulls it right there, and she
Speaker 11: gets out with her purse and walks up there, and
Speaker 11: him and her started arguing and then start throwing stuff
Speaker 11: in the black guar.
Speaker 4: I don't know what it was. Looked like clothes and stuff.
Speaker 11: And next thing I know, he pulled her by the
Speaker 11: hair of the head and pulled her back into the house.
Speaker 1: This neighbor could hear the argument, but not what they
Speaker 1: were saying. Another neighbor heard a little more.
Speaker 4: Then I heard her say, let me go, let me go,
Speaker 4: and you got my head. You're hurting me. You're hurting me,
Speaker 4: and he drug her in the fills.
Speaker 1: Two neighbors witnessed the start of the argument. As soon
Speaker 1: as Kathy got out of her car, she started talking
Speaker 1: with Colin. The neighbors couldn't hear what they were saying,
Speaker 1: but their body language screamed argument. Then Colin grabbed a
Speaker 1: fistful of his mother's hair and pulled her inside as
Speaker 1: she yelled, let me go, you're hurting me.
Speaker 4: You know, I knew some problems as she had rid
Speaker 4: of runs.
Speaker 12: In before and those huh, what are those problems?
Speaker 11: Well, she said that the mother and the grandson were
Speaker 11: at each other last winter, and the grandson come and
Speaker 11: stayed here. I guess there was some problems here because
Speaker 11: the cops were out here two or three times last winter.
Speaker 1: Apparently this wasn't the first time Colin had fought with
Speaker 1: his mother. The previous year, Colin stayed with his grandmother
Speaker 1: to let things cool off between him and his mom,
Speaker 1: but the tension between them never left a simmering point.
Speaker 11: I called Susan. Sue's all this happened? I called Susan,
Speaker 11: I said, Susan's uth going on over to your house?
Speaker 11: I said, his cops everywhere. I said, you're great, and
Speaker 11: sons outside, it looks like he's crying. She said, where's
Speaker 11: my daughter?
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know that tension must have built
Speaker 1: and built, has it erupted in a fight in the
Speaker 1: driveway ending with Kathy being stabbed in the neck.
Speaker 11: And then while you guys are out there doing that,
Speaker 11: guess get what phone call?
Speaker 7: I get?
Speaker 4: His probation officer calls, who's that?
Speaker 12: Collins called you?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 13: Uh?
Speaker 4: If I heard the phone call in there It's from
Speaker 4: a nine four six number. And she says, is this
Speaker 4: kay Jones? I said yes.
Speaker 11: She said, well, I am calling so and so's probation officer.
Speaker 11: I'm a juvenile detention officer is calling okay? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 11: cop sitting out there talking to him. But I don't
Speaker 11: know anything else. And she said, did you hear any
Speaker 11: gunshots or anything?
Speaker 4: I said no. I said, what's going on? She said,
Speaker 4: is oh okay?
Speaker 11: And I said yeah.
Speaker 1: The neighbors at the Hamptons didn't know Colin's background, but
Speaker 1: a call from his juvenile probation officer hinted at him
Speaker 1: being a troubled teen. When his grandmother finally arrived home,
Speaker 1: she found her normally quiet street in chaos. Immediately she
Speaker 1: knew her daughter was dead, and she also knew who
Speaker 1: had done it.
Speaker 12: How was the relationship at the beginning.
Speaker 14: In the beginning, it was fine, okay, and then there
Speaker 14: started to be problems.
Speaker 12: Okay? Can you describe the problems?
Speaker 14: He didn't want to do what Kathy told him to do.
Speaker 14: Kathy would basically, you know, harp on him.
Speaker 1: When Colin attacked his mother and stomped on her hand.
Speaker 1: She was only trying to discipline her seventeen year old son.
Speaker 1: He hadn't done the chores she assigned him. She threatened
Speaker 1: to take away his xbox and cell phone. That's when
Speaker 1: Colin flipped out.
Speaker 14: So anyway, so I was there and he pushed her
Speaker 14: and stomped on her hand.
Speaker 1: Colin stood up, looked at his mother in the eye
Speaker 1: and said, let's go, before pushing her to the ground
Speaker 1: with a single move and stomping on her hand. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, the police were called.
Speaker 12: I'm in a constant state of thought.
Speaker 15: It by it, and I don't know if I think
Speaker 15: she's going to do something. Even if she's not, I
Speaker 15: might act. I'm not going to go crazy or anything,
Speaker 15: but I'm I'm not sure, honest.
Speaker 14: Yes, So then he was in the police squad. Cathy
Speaker 14: refused to go to the hospital for her hand mm hmmm.
Speaker 14: And he called me over to the police squad and said, Mama,
Speaker 14: you know she pushed me first. And I said, Colin,
Speaker 14: I was there, that's not what happened.
Speaker 4: I said, I.
Speaker 14: Agree that she was very aggressive to you. I said,
Speaker 14: but you pushed her and we talked about this, and
Speaker 14: then you stomped on her hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tried to say she attacked him first, but his
Speaker 1: grandmother witnessed the whole thing. He was arrested and charged
Speaker 1: as a juvenile for domestic violence.
Speaker 14: So he was put on probation.
Speaker 12: Okay for that incident. Yes, was he charged with domestic violence?
Speaker 16: Yep, he was.
Speaker 14: He was. He was put on probation. He was supposed
Speaker 14: to be getting off of probation this month.
Speaker 1: Colin was processed, charged and sentenced to probation. The court
Speaker 1: recommended he remained separate from his mother for some time
Speaker 1: before going home, so he lived with his grandmother for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. As if that's a solution. Am
Speaker 1: I the only one noticing a lack of male paternal
Speaker 1: figures in Colin's life.
Speaker 14: When she came to pick him up, he ran away.
Speaker 14: So then he was gone for two days. We couldn't
Speaker 14: find him because she came and he looked at me
Speaker 14: and he said, you are fucking crazy. If you think
Speaker 14: that I'm getting in the car with my mom, you
Speaker 14: have gone completely nuts. And I went Colin, we talked
Speaker 14: about all this. He said, I'm not going back, and
Speaker 14: he took off. It was pouring down rain, So finally
Speaker 14: you all picked him up and took him to DHS
Speaker 14: or whatever it's called in this state, you know, the yes.
Speaker 14: So he ran away from df DSF dyslexic much he
Speaker 14: was out again. So finally he was picked up and
Speaker 14: law enforcement brought him home. And that's when they said,
Speaker 14: we're going to have lease coming, you know every so often,
Speaker 14: like every day, it's anywhere from I think seven in
Speaker 14: the morning to midnight, to check and make sure you
Speaker 14: guys are okay.
Speaker 1: After a couple of weeks, said his grandmother's, Colin refused
Speaker 1: to return to his mother's house. He ran off into
Speaker 1: the rain and was gone for two days. When the
Speaker 1: police finally found him, they took him into the Crisis
Speaker 1: Stabilization Unit CSU is a short term, specialized facility that
Speaker 1: provides immediate, round the clock psychiatric care and support for
Speaker 1: individuals experiencing a severe mental health crisis, such as suicidal thoughts,
Speaker 1: severe agitation, or psychosis. There, Colin was evaluated, deemed not
Speaker 1: a threat to himself for others, and released. They love
Speaker 1: their catch and release at these places because they just
Speaker 1: don't have the money, the funding, the beds to keep people.
Speaker 1: Why is that when we spend so much money in
Speaker 1: this country, so much more than we even make really
Speaker 1: in taxes every year. We can't even provide basic services.
Speaker 1: I wonder who's sneaking into the cookie jar when we're
Speaker 1: not looking. Anyway, the front doors opened wide for Colin
Speaker 1: and he walked straight out of that facility, cured supposedly.
Speaker 10: And when the doors opened, young man came straight up
Speaker 10: to me and approached me and said, I needed to
Speaker 10: be baker acting. Were you surprised to hear that?
Speaker 14: Oh?
Speaker 10: Yeah, busically people want to leave.
Speaker 17: Did you ask him why he said that, Yes.
Speaker 2: I did. It's unusual.
Speaker 10: He said, I need to be baker acted because I'm
Speaker 10: either going to go kill myself or and he said
Speaker 10: his mother.
Speaker 1: Colin didn't want to go back home with his mom.
Speaker 1: He went further, saying he would throw them out of
Speaker 1: the car, shoot them, or stab them. He also mentioned
Speaker 1: that his grandmother wasn't safe if he went home with
Speaker 1: her either. Maybe sometimes we should listen to these people
Speaker 1: when they're telling us exactly what they're going to do. No, okay,
Speaker 1: suit yourself. Colin was placed on a psychiatric hold for
Speaker 1: three more days. Eventually he had to go back home
Speaker 1: with his mom. Though anyway, for a while, everything was okay,
Speaker 1: A couple of officers were signed to him, and they
Speaker 1: would check in at random times every day to ensure
Speaker 1: he and his mom were okay. He even started to
Speaker 1: go to church with one of the officers. He graduated
Speaker 1: from high school a year early, got a job, and
Speaker 1: enrolled in college. Then the tension between him and his
Speaker 1: mom arose again. By September seventh, twenty twenty four, the
Speaker 1: day before Kathy's death, they were doing nothing but arguing.
Speaker 14: So Colin called me at one and said, my mom
Speaker 14: kicked me out. What am I supposed to do? I said,
Speaker 14: you need to go back home? He said, no, no,
Speaker 14: I don't feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: Kathy had kicked him out of the house, so Colin
Speaker 1: loaded up his car and went to Grandma Susan's. Susan
Speaker 1: was once again inserted into the middle of the argument.
Speaker 1: She spoke with Kathy and even though she kicked him out,
Speaker 1: she now demanded that he come home the next morning.
Speaker 14: She wanted Colin to be at home at ten o'clock.
Speaker 12: In the morning. In the morning, yes, okay, she said.
Speaker 14: If not, she was calling the police. She was training
Speaker 14: him in as a runaway. I said, he can't be
Speaker 14: turned in in a runaway. He's at my house. And
Speaker 14: Detective Lacey even said that's fine, and she said, well,
Speaker 14: he didn't tell his probation officer. I said, yes, he did.
Speaker 14: He left a message that he was going to his
Speaker 14: grandmother's house. Yes, she said, I'm going to come and
Speaker 14: get him. He's going to follow me with with his car.
Speaker 14: He didn't have gas. She had blocked his checking account,
Speaker 14: his check card, so he didn't have access to that.
Speaker 14: I told Colin, I said, your mom's going to be there.
Speaker 4: I said, don't touch her.
Speaker 17: Be nice.
Speaker 1: Sadly, Colin didn't take that advice. Kathy lay lifeless on
Speaker 1: her mother's kitchen floor in a pool of blood. Colin
Speaker 1: sat in the back of a patrol car, waiting to
Speaker 1: be taken to the station and charged with murder. In
Speaker 1: the days that followed, detectives spoke with the rest of
Speaker 1: Colin's family, trying to understand exactly what had happened between
Speaker 1: him and his mother. His grandfather wasn't surprised at all.
Speaker 2: He and his mom were having difficulties and when she'd
Speaker 2: set down limits on behavior, he would not just rebel,
Speaker 2: he would become violent. And they had asked me because
Speaker 2: Susan said, hey, can't. I can't deal with this and
Speaker 2: he can't be with Kathy because he's threaten to kill her.
Speaker 2: And I said, he's starting to kill you too, right, Susan?
Speaker 2: She said, well, yes, of course he has. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: And I told her multiple times I don't care what
Speaker 2: you have to do get rid of the boy. Well
Speaker 2: will you take him?
Speaker 4: I said, hell no, I just know, but hell no.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that boy is thrashed in the head. He is weaponized.
Speaker 2: He is going to kill you, your mother me.
Speaker 1: Colin's grandfather painted a frightening picture of Colin and Kathy's relationship.
Speaker 1: He was a violent teenager who didn't like authority or responsibility.
Speaker 1: I mean, who does really. Both Grandma Susan and Kathy
Speaker 1: were afraid of him. But what do you do where
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old You can't control ladies any ideas? Man,
Speaker 1: This society is cooked, isn't it.
Speaker 2: He also told me in detail four months ago, how
Speaker 2: he wanted to murder his mother and he really wanted
Speaker 2: to literally see the blood squirt out of her neck.
Speaker 2: That's what he wanted.
Speaker 12: He told you this four months ago.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, weren't anything else he wanted that I mean,
Speaker 2: he talked about strangling earth, and he said, but I
Speaker 2: could do that, But really, what I want to do
Speaker 2: is I want to watch the blood squirt out of
Speaker 2: her and watch the life squirt out of her. I said,
Speaker 2: that's not really good. He goes, yeah, but it's what
Speaker 2: I want to do. And so I just let the
Speaker 2: kid go and be like, well, tell me more, tell
Speaker 2: me more. This sounds interesting. Yeah, Oh, I want to
Speaker 2: see the gore. I want to watch it pump out
Speaker 2: of her.
Speaker 12: Wow, if you are the.
Speaker 2: Puppy, he goes, yeah, it did, well, that'd be a
Speaker 2: lot of power. He goes yeah.
Speaker 1: Detectives were building a case. The story of the fight
Speaker 1: and falling on a knife was way too far fetched.
Speaker 1: Colin seemed to be troubled, and there were records of
Speaker 1: this with every interaction he had with law enforcement and
Speaker 1: the Department of Children and Families. Even his own grandfather
Speaker 1: saw him as a danger to those around him, and
Speaker 1: there was a big reason for this, As if the
Speaker 1: murder of a woman by her teenage son wasn't horrific enough.
Speaker 1: The Polk County Sheriff held yet another press conference to
Speaker 1: inform the public of the rest of the story.
Speaker 16: A cold blooded murder of a thirty nine year old
Speaker 16: mother by her seventeen year old son. It all started
Speaker 16: on September the eighth, which was this last Sunday, when
Speaker 16: we got a nine to one to one call from
Speaker 16: Colin Griffith, who's seventeen years of age. Here's what he said.
Speaker 16: He said he and his mother had a very long
Speaker 16: fight and she fell on a knife and killed herself
Speaker 16: when the deputies arrived. He met the deputies outside and
Speaker 16: he was calm, cool, collected, not upset, and he had
Speaker 16: blood on him. What we found inside was this knife.
Speaker 16: This knife is twelve inches long, and of the twelve inches,
Speaker 16: eight inches of that it is the blade. So he
Speaker 16: said that his mother fell on this knife. The medical
Speaker 16: examiner said it is not reasonable or plausible that she
Speaker 16: died the way that he said she did.
Speaker 4: Just didn't happen.
Speaker 16: There were witnesses outside the mobile home that actually saw
Speaker 16: Colin dragged his mother into the house by the hair
Speaker 16: on her head. Colin is about six foot and one
Speaker 16: hundred and sixty pounds.
Speaker 1: That wasn't even the most damning evidence that Colin had
Speaker 1: purposefully killed his mother.
Speaker 16: But let me go through some details because as we
Speaker 16: start to peel back the layer of this onion. We
Speaker 16: find out that this is not just a singular event,
Speaker 16: with Colin stabbing his mother in the neck and ultimately
Speaker 16: killing her. Here's what we found, and follow me as
Speaker 16: I read a timeline to you. February fourteenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 16: on Valentine's Day, Lincoln County, Oklahoma, Colin said that his
Speaker 16: dad pulled a knife on him and he shot and
Speaker 16: killed his dad. That's right. His father was named Charles.
Speaker 16: He shot him once in the chest and once in
Speaker 16: the head, and he claimed self defense.
Speaker 1: That's right. Colin had killed his father just nineteen months
Speaker 1: earlier in Oklahoma. But the pieces starting to fit together yet.
Speaker 13: Dispatch got a call of a shooting. We responded, had
Speaker 13: a fifteen year old male caller on the phone said
Speaker 13: that his dad had a knife and had him cornered
Speaker 13: and he had to shoot him. Dad has a girlfriend
Speaker 13: at fiance that was at the grocery store, and so
Speaker 13: she's returned since then and we've talked to her, so
Speaker 13: she's been notified as well. There are several firearms in there,
Speaker 13: so I don't know. We haven't done any kind of
Speaker 13: trace or anything on that yet. There is lots of
Speaker 13: guns in the house.
Speaker 16: The Lincoln County Sheriff's office and the Oklahoma stbuta of
Speaker 16: investigations charged Colin with murder in the first degree. They
Speaker 16: dropped the charges less than a month later. They said
Speaker 16: they could not disprove Collins's assertion of self defense, so
Speaker 16: he was released.
Speaker 1: He claimed self defense, and a month later all charges
Speaker 1: were dropped. He just spent a couple of weeks in
Speaker 1: jail and that was it. Shortly after, Oklahoma sent him
Speaker 1: to his mother in Florida. There he was arrested for
Speaker 1: beating up his mom, ran away, and was put on
Speaker 1: psychiatric hold twice. If only humans were good at seeing patterns,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 16: So now we're to the faithful day on September eighth.
Speaker 16: Our investigation clearly and unequivocally shows that that circumstance did
Speaker 16: not occur like that. In fact, he used similar language
Speaker 16: to when he made the nine to one to one
Speaker 16: call what eighteen or twenty months earlier, when he shot
Speaker 16: and killed his father.
Speaker 1: The authorities did notice a pattern. Well, it was possible
Speaker 1: that Colin acted in self defense against one parent. It's
Speaker 1: highly improbable that he would have done so again with
Speaker 1: a different one for me once, shame on you for
Speaker 1: me twice, and we won't be fooled again, or some
Speaker 1: shit I don't remember.
Speaker 16: It's important to understand. When you look at this, you
Speaker 16: see a kid. When I look at him, I see
Speaker 16: a psychopath. I see totally erratic behavior, to the point
Speaker 16: that he's all ready, at seventeen years of age, shot
Speaker 16: and killed his father and got away with it, and
Speaker 16: stabbed his mother in the neck so hard that the
Speaker 16: knife went all the way through and was to the
Speaker 16: back of her neck and she died there. He's being
Speaker 16: charged with first degree murder, obviously, and we're asking the
Speaker 16: State Attorneys office. It's their decision, but our State Attorney's
Speaker 16: office is the greatest to prosecute him as an adult.
Speaker 16: Now he's killed two people and killed his mother and father,
Speaker 16: and I can assure you beyond into the exclusion of
Speaker 16: every reasonable doubt based upon his conduct, had he gone
Speaker 16: to live with his grandmother at the end of this
Speaker 16: and she crossed him, she would be next. He's violent,
Speaker 16: he's dangerous. He showed zero remorse, zero remorse. He is
Speaker 16: a dangerous human being. Nothing gives you the right to
Speaker 16: unilatterly stab your mother and kill her.
Speaker 12: And I'm not.
Speaker 16: Convinced based upon what I know now. Now Oklahoma didn't
Speaker 16: know this then, there were no witnesses to him shooting
Speaker 16: his dad. I'm not sure now that he didn't set
Speaker 16: his dad up to murder him.
Speaker 1: It turns out that Colin's story was much more complicated
Speaker 1: than anyone realized. It started long before he was even born.
Speaker 1: Colin's aunt, Christine says it all started back when Kathy
Speaker 1: was only thirteen.
Speaker 18: Her ex husband actually had to crush on me and
Speaker 18: was pursuing me. And when I was like, I am
Speaker 18: not interested.
Speaker 1: Aunt Christine is talking about Charles Griffith, Colin's father and
Speaker 1: Kathy's ex husband, who everyone called Chuck.
Speaker 18: But when I finally like, was like, you got to stop,
Speaker 18: he well, actually he didn't stop. He kept calling my
Speaker 18: house and then he would start talking to my sister.
Speaker 18: He just latched onto her.
Speaker 1: Chuck pursued Christine and called her house all the time.
Speaker 1: But when she told Chuck she wasn't interested, he went
Speaker 1: for the next best thing, her younger sister. They became
Speaker 1: inseparable in a bad way.
Speaker 18: We found out that she was pregnant shortly after one
Speaker 18: of her mini runaway incidentss and I begged her to
Speaker 18: give the baby up for adoption because I knew that
Speaker 18: if she hadn't, that her life with Chuck was never
Speaker 18: going to be good. So anyway, obviously she didn't. Christopher
Speaker 18: is here.
Speaker 19: Well, so they end up getting married, and she's married
Speaker 19: at a really young age fourteen. He's what now, seventeen
Speaker 19: eighteen at that point.
Speaker 18: No, no, no, okay, she was nineteen when he got
Speaker 18: her pregnant at thirteen.
Speaker 1: When Kathy got pregnant at thirteen, her mother gave her
Speaker 1: a choice, put up the baby for adoption or mary Chuck.
Speaker 1: She chose poorly. She chose to marry Chuck.
Speaker 18: So at fourteen, she got her ged and she started
Speaker 18: taking college classes. Because Chuck never had a job, never
Speaker 18: had a job, but he always girls.
Speaker 12: He never was a teacher or anything like that.
Speaker 18: Oh no, no, he was a teacher. That's how he
Speaker 18: found the little girls. But Kathy got his degree for
Speaker 18: him online.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, yeah, of course he liked little girls.
Speaker 1: He impregnated a thirteen year old after he was already
Speaker 1: a legal adult. Kathy and Chuck got married and moved
Speaker 1: into their own house to playhouse. Kathy gave birth to
Speaker 1: their first son, Christopher, and then attended school online. She
Speaker 1: got teaching degrees for herself and for Chuck, but Chuck
Speaker 1: used that degree not to teach, but to get close
Speaker 1: to underage girls. That is, until he would get caught
Speaker 1: and he would get fired. Chuck was unemployed a lot.
Speaker 1: The family moved often, presumably for work and to escape
Speaker 1: whatever stigma Chuck stirred up being the pedo that he was.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to twenty nineteen and the family was in Florida.
Speaker 18: But I guess Kathy had a student that she was
Speaker 18: kind of kind of adopted for lack of better words.
Speaker 4: Her name was Gabby.
Speaker 18: Gabby like you move in with them, I mean Kathy.
Speaker 18: Kathy called Gabby her daughter, and then it turns out
Speaker 18: that Chuck and her were in a relationship, and Chuck
Speaker 18: left Kathy for Gabby.
Speaker 1: Kathy had taken a sixteen year old student named Gabby
Speaker 1: under her wing and into her home. It was an
Speaker 1: act of compassion for a young girl with few options. Chuck,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, suddenly had a young girl living
Speaker 1: in his house. Oh boy. When Kathy discovered the affair,
Speaker 1: it was the final straw she had put up with
Speaker 1: his infidelity long enough, the divorce was nasty. Colin's older brother,
Speaker 1: Christopher was already out of high school, so Kathy and
Speaker 1: Charles fought over twelve year old Colin. Eventually, Charles, Colin,
Speaker 1: and Gabby moved to Oklahoma. Colin became separated from his
Speaker 1: mother and the rest of the family.
Speaker 4: Why was dad so bad to Colin?
Speaker 14: What did he do well? He isolated him. He wouldn't
Speaker 14: allow him to leave the farm, he wouldn't let him
Speaker 14: go to school. He refused to have him in Scouts,
Speaker 14: and he kept saying, I can't put him in school
Speaker 14: because I'm afraid Kathy will come to the school and
Speaker 14: bring DHS in and then they'll get involved, which DHS
Speaker 14: in Oklahoma did get involved, but all they said was
Speaker 14: they need family counseling, and they left it at that.
Speaker 14: Colin did have family counseling, it was court ordered and
Speaker 14: his father refused to take and he took him once
Speaker 14: and then he said, no, I'm not taking him back.
Speaker 19: So did they have any type of communication while he
Speaker 19: was in oklahom No.
Speaker 18: She would not let Colin talk.
Speaker 19: To Kathy at all, Like they never spoke or did
Speaker 19: she every once in a while, like Chris miss or birthdays,
Speaker 19: like how did she talk to him?
Speaker 18: Well, usually Chuck wanted extra money and then he would
Speaker 18: let her talk to him, but only on speaker phone
Speaker 18: in front of him. There was one time where he
Speaker 18: got a phone and called Taffy and then when Chuck
Speaker 18: found out about it, he really really beat him.
Speaker 1: For three years, Colin only had his father and the
Speaker 1: barely older Gabby to interact with. Things were bad and
Speaker 1: only got worse.
Speaker 12: Go back three years.
Speaker 9: I let him to fourteen years old, Like he's still
Speaker 9: wearing the same clothes as an eleven year old was
Speaker 9: wearing as a fourteen year old. Was is to the
Speaker 9: point that one of my siblings are on My mother said, like, hey,
Speaker 9: the shoes that he had weren't fitting him there this
Speaker 9: is the point that his toes.
Speaker 12: Were like crunched up and punched up.
Speaker 9: And everything like the shirts and pants and everything that
Speaker 9: he was wearing like barely fit him where they were
Speaker 9: too tight.
Speaker 12: He was malnourished.
Speaker 9: Him just going to like a Walmart with my sister
Speaker 9: was causing them to have social anxiety and stuff like that,
Speaker 9: which he said.
Speaker 6: His main food so a week was like a gallon
Speaker 6: of milk steak and potatoes. I had to teach him
Speaker 6: how to like use a towel after a show because
Speaker 6: when he first originally got here, he would just come
Speaker 6: out of a show and put his clothes on it
Speaker 6: drip rod. In my head, that's triggering, you know, some
Speaker 6: type of abuse, because when you're that age, tell do
Speaker 6: you not know how to use a shadow?
Speaker 14: He was on a futon mattress in the laundry room.
Speaker 1: As Colin got older and entered puberty, he discovered his sexuality,
Speaker 1: another thing Chuck had a problem with.
Speaker 14: Colin said that his dad would have sex sat right
Speaker 14: in the next bedroom with him so that he could
Speaker 14: hear everything that was going on, because Colin felt that
Speaker 14: he was gay, and so the dad was trying to
Speaker 14: change him out of being gay.
Speaker 12: Colin felt that he was gay.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yeah, you realize how mentally perverted Barrels was.
Speaker 2: He'd beat Kathy, he'd beat the kids. I mean, this
Speaker 2: guy was. This guy was a major psychological manipulator and
Speaker 2: abuser physically mentally. But this guy was a complete psychopath.
Speaker 1: Finally, on Valentine's Day twenty twenty three, while Gabby was
Speaker 1: out of the house, Colin shot and killed his father.
Speaker 14: The dad refused to let Colin have anything to do
Speaker 14: with his mom, but Colin wanted to leave. He wanted
Speaker 14: to live with his mom, but the dad cornered him
Speaker 14: or either cornered or the wall and had a knife
Speaker 14: and said, you're going to stay into this tape recording
Speaker 14: that you want to live with me, and that's all
Speaker 14: there is to it. I'm not going to to court
Speaker 14: and be embarrassed by you saying you want to live
Speaker 14: with your mom. And so, as I said, he had
Speaker 14: twenty three guns loaded in the house. And so when
Speaker 14: he went back, one of the pistols was right there,
Speaker 14: and he pulled in and shot him.
Speaker 12: Was his dad like backing him into a corner?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Colin called nine one one and explained that his father
Speaker 1: had attacked him with a knife and he shot him
Speaker 1: in self defense. The police arrested him and pressed charges,
Speaker 1: only to drop them a month later. They couldn't prove
Speaker 1: it was or wasn't self defense.
Speaker 2: Good mother and his grandmother, Susan, knew that he had
Speaker 2: murdered his father because he admitted it to both of them.
Speaker 19: Did he admit to killing him and self defense or
Speaker 19: did he admit just to killing him.
Speaker 2: He admitted to setting the whole thing.
Speaker 12: Up, to setting the whole thing up.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I told Colin, I said, Colin, I don't
Speaker 2: agree with what you did, but you know what, I
Speaker 2: thought you of.
Speaker 10: Beer and give you a fucking award.
Speaker 2: You took the trash out. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's face it, Chuck was a real piece of shit.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the police in Oklahoma looked at this meek little
Speaker 1: kid and felt pity. Why charge Colin with murder if
Speaker 1: no one was going to miss Chuck after all? But
Speaker 1: now with his mother's death, it changed the way everyone
Speaker 1: saw his self defense claim. Paul County deputies found Colin
Speaker 1: Griffith calm after the death of his mother, her lifeless
Speaker 1: body just a few feet away. He claimed it was
Speaker 1: self defense. She attacked him and stabbed herself in the
Speaker 1: neck somehow, but neighbors saw him drag her into the
Speaker 1: house by her hair. His grandmother described arguments, fights, and
Speaker 1: threats of violence, even murder. After his arrest, the sheriff
Speaker 1: revealed this wasn't his first murder. Eighteen months earlier, he
Speaker 1: shot and killed his father, one to the chest and
Speaker 1: one to the head. Family members described a life of
Speaker 1: isolation neglect and abuse at the hands of a pedophile father.
Speaker 1: They thought he did it on purpose, but they couldn't
Speaker 1: blame him. After charges in Oklahoma were dropped, Colin moved
Speaker 1: back in with his mother, Kathy. On the surface, it
Speaker 1: looked like stability. She took him on trips bottom clothes,
Speaker 1: got him back in school, and tried to give him
Speaker 1: the kind of normal teenage life he'd never had.
Speaker 3: She was trying to help call and reorient to a
Speaker 3: life where he wasn't just stuck out in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere. So they did things like they went to Washington,
Speaker 3: d C. They went to White House, they went all
Speaker 3: over DC, saw everything in orders to see there. She
Speaker 3: took him on trips to Central America to Caribbean. She
Speaker 3: was trying to get him back into as close as
Speaker 3: she could in normal life and create opportunities that the
Speaker 3: two of them missed for so many years.
Speaker 1: But Colin was basically an only child for three years.
Speaker 1: He wasn't required to do much. I mean, he didn't
Speaker 1: even have to go to school. Besides, he had the
Speaker 1: barely older soon to be stepmom, Gabby to pick up
Speaker 1: after him. So when Kathy started requiring chores, Colin would rebel,
Speaker 1: and Kathy would push even harder.
Speaker 12: I feel like.
Speaker 18: She wanted to get back an eight year old little boy,
Speaker 18: but that is not what.
Speaker 1: She got back.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I know she wanted the best for him, but
Speaker 18: she just pushed so much on him.
Speaker 4: He's got to take these college classes.
Speaker 18: He's got to do this for bright future scholarship. He's
Speaker 18: gotta you know, he's got to help the chores, and
Speaker 18: just so much, so fast. And I was like, Kathy,
Speaker 18: just let him take normal classes. Don't don't make him
Speaker 18: take a college class.
Speaker 12: And I said that to my mom, and she was like,
Speaker 12: but it was the same credit. And I was like,
Speaker 12: you're missing the point.
Speaker 4: I don't care if it's.
Speaker 18: The same credit or not if a kid who has
Speaker 18: not been in.
Speaker 5: School in three years.
Speaker 18: But she just pushed him so hard.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for Colin's teenage stubbornness to outlast
Speaker 1: Kathy's willpower. Pushing him harder didn't seem to work.
Speaker 14: Because she said that he wasn't following the rules, he
Speaker 14: wasn't doing the chores that she wouldn't. He wouldn't help
Speaker 14: her put a bookshelf up on the wall. It was
Speaker 14: last bookshelf to put on and she just has had
Speaker 14: it with him. She said, you know, he has food
Speaker 14: all over his room. He's not supposed to. We have ants.
Speaker 1: Now, when all of her efforts to teach her son
Speaker 1: responsibility failed, she decided to teach him some accountability. She
Speaker 1: turned to punishment.
Speaker 18: Here's something about Kathy that I think is really important
Speaker 18: to know.
Speaker 12: When Kathy gets hurt.
Speaker 18: She doesn't get sad, like when her feelings are hurt.
Speaker 4: She doesn't get sad.
Speaker 18: She just gets mad, but like rage mad.
Speaker 1: When Kathy punished Colin, she didn't just stop with taking
Speaker 1: away his phone.
Speaker 14: I'm selling his car to CarMax. I'm just enrolling him
Speaker 14: from school. I'm taking away his computer, and I'm cutting
Speaker 14: off his phone.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't just take away one thing. She would take
Speaker 1: away everything in the world that he loved. She would
Speaker 1: even shut off his debit card. But when that didn't work, you.
Speaker 14: Know, she made him bend over. She hit him with
Speaker 14: a belt. Then after that she grabbed a big ten
Speaker 14: pound or twenty pound weight.
Speaker 1: She would make Colin hold this twenty pound weight over
Speaker 1: his head for extended periods of time as punishment, and
Speaker 1: the belt, well, it didn't hurt as much as it humiliated.
Speaker 1: So life went on for eighteen months. It was a
Speaker 1: cycle of failed responsibilities and humiliating punishments. Then Kathy started
Speaker 1: to crack.
Speaker 14: So for a while everything seemed to be fine, and
Speaker 14: then Kathy started having her problems with I want to
Speaker 14: kill myself.
Speaker 4: I hate life.
Speaker 14: She kept saying that her life just wasn't the way
Speaker 14: it was supposed to be, that Colin wasn't the way
Speaker 14: he was supposed to be, that he was too much
Speaker 14: like his dad.
Speaker 1: Kathy had battled with suicidal thoughts in the past, but
Speaker 1: now they were back, and it was bad. She even
Speaker 1: made an attempt.
Speaker 14: She said, I'm taking all the metaprobrile, all her heart medicine,
Speaker 14: and Colin took her. I told Colin take her to
Speaker 14: the er.
Speaker 18: But it got to the point where it was almost
Speaker 18: like psychologically abusive, you know, just the constant I off
Speaker 18: is so terrible.
Speaker 12: Nothing's supposed to be this way.
Speaker 18: I can't do this anymore. She was drinking, she was drugging,
Speaker 18: she was yelling at him, she was being mean to
Speaker 18: him physically, mentally, all the things.
Speaker 19: I mean, it sounds like he's going He went through
Speaker 19: the same thing on both sides separate times.
Speaker 1: Colin's older brother, Chris, witnessed this behavior as well.
Speaker 9: She would kick me out of the house, she would
Speaker 9: get drunk, she would abuse her pills and she.
Speaker 17: Which is toxic, and no other way.
Speaker 2: To put it.
Speaker 1: Unsurprisingly, after his arrest, the state attorney made the announcement
Speaker 1: everyone was waiting for.
Speaker 20: I'm Brian Hawes, State Attorney for the ten Judicial Circuit
Speaker 20: of Florida. The Polk County Grand Jury indicted Colin Griffith
Speaker 20: on the charge of first degree murder for the killing
Speaker 20: of his mother in Olmerdale last week. I made the
Speaker 20: decision to charge this seventeen year old as an adult
Speaker 20: based upon the egregious facts and circumstances of this case.
Speaker 20: Polk County Law Enforcement continues to work with the authorities
Speaker 20: in Oklahoma to be sure they are provided all relevant
Speaker 20: information and evidence that will allow them to continue to
Speaker 20: evaluate their case as they deem necessary. My prosecutors and
Speaker 20: the deputies from the Polk County Sheriff's Office will continue
Speaker 20: to work together to pursue justice in this case and
Speaker 20: hold Colin Griffith accountable for his murder.
Speaker 1: Colin pleaded not guilty to one count of kidnapping, for
Speaker 1: dragging his mother inside by her hair, and one count
Speaker 1: of premeditated murder. His eventual trial would last five days.
Speaker 1: The prosecution portrayed him as a cold and calculated killer.
Speaker 17: This bloodlust, the defendant sits there a guilty person who
Speaker 17: stabbed his own mother in the neck and then watched
Speaker 17: her bleed out in front of him. That death was
Speaker 17: not instantaneous. She bled internally, she bled externally. She was
Speaker 17: fighting to get up. She's got a gaping open wound
Speaker 17: in her neck. Compliments of her song, Thanks Colin Griffith,
Speaker 17: appreciate that the lady that brought him into this world
Speaker 17: here on earth, he took out of this world and
Speaker 17: this earth. The reality of what that person did to
Speaker 17: his mom is a second by second nightmare for her.
Speaker 17: She left this world knowing that the person that took
Speaker 17: her out was the sun that she gave everything to.
Speaker 17: But the reality of it for what the defenders accomplished,
Speaker 17: which is exactly exactly what he wanted to do. For
Speaker 17: so the writing was on the wall, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 17: The writing was on the wall. The defendant knew what
Speaker 17: he wanted to do, and it was just a matter
Speaker 17: of time. If nothing else. He's a man of his word.
Speaker 17: He said he would kill his mom, and he took
Speaker 17: her out. But you know what, now he's in a
Speaker 17: court of law. Now he has to suffer whatever comes
Speaker 17: his way in the form of a verdict, and that
Speaker 17: verdict is guilty.
Speaker 1: The defense portrayed him as a kid unable to escape
Speaker 1: a toxic mother.
Speaker 5: I think about this all the times that you've heard
Speaker 5: about Colin saying I don't feel safe. If my mom
Speaker 5: attacks me, I'll defend myself. If she comes at me,
Speaker 5: if she pulls a gun on me, if she punches me,
Speaker 5: I'll defend myself. Remember, Colin told people that he would
Speaker 5: rather be in the Baker Rack facility. He would rather
Speaker 5: be in jail, He would rather be in foster care
Speaker 5: than at home with his mond. And the state wants
Speaker 5: you to believe that Colin is just a brat who
Speaker 5: didn't like the discipline he gut, so he murdered his mom.
Speaker 5: That's also absurd because, as the state has pointed out
Speaker 5: many times, Colin had what they think is a great
Speaker 5: life with mom. Right, so he gets to go on trips,
Speaker 5: absolutely got to go on trips. He lives in a clean,
Speaker 5: nice organized home with plenty of food. Yes, he has
Speaker 5: a phone, he has an Xbox, he has a computer.
Speaker 5: He gets to go to college. Don't you think Colin,
Speaker 5: as smart as he was to be able to graduate early,
Speaker 5: would know that if he actually were to be placed
Speaker 5: in the baker Ac facility, or remain in jail, or
Speaker 5: went into foster care instead of going home with his mom,
Speaker 5: with whom he didn't feel safe, he would get none
Speaker 5: of those wonderful things, none of them. He would not
Speaker 5: have a phone, he would not have an Xbox, he
Speaker 5: would not go on trips all over the country or
Speaker 5: the world. And yet he still said, please rebakeer act me.
Speaker 5: Please don't send me home from jail with my mom. Please,
Speaker 5: I'd rather go to foster care.
Speaker 1: They blamed the I mean they brought up Kathy's mental
Speaker 1: health struggles, is what I meant to say as proof
Speaker 1: of her toxicity, while also providing another what if scenario.
Speaker 5: Isn't it also reasonable that Kathy knew what the outcome
Speaker 5: was going to be. She picked up a knife and
Speaker 5: threatened calling with it. You've heard of suicide by cop.
Speaker 5: Isn't it reasonable to think that Kathy committed suicide by son?
Speaker 5: She had never been able to successfully commit suicide before,
Speaker 5: despite her many attempts.
Speaker 1: They also tried to say that if Colin were a
Speaker 1: rage filled monster, wouldn't he have killed her? I don't
Speaker 1: know harder.
Speaker 5: They tried to get you to believe that Colin was
Speaker 5: rage filled and hate filled, and all of these malicious
Speaker 5: thoughts were geared towards his mom. If you believe that,
Speaker 5: beyond a reasonable doubt, don't you think there'd be more
Speaker 5: than just one wound on Kathy? Don't you expect that
Speaker 5: there would be five, ten, twenty stab wounds. That's something
Speaker 5: you can consider too.
Speaker 1: After the closing arguments, twelve of Colin's peers retired to
Speaker 1: the jury room. They would deliberate for eleven hours, pushing
Speaker 1: proceedings into the following day before returning a verdict. When
Speaker 1: Colin entered the courtroom, he smiled at his grandma Susan
Speaker 1: in the gallery before sitting between his defense attorneys. Then
Speaker 1: the jury entered the room.
Speaker 21: State of Florida Versus Colin Griffin, with the jury fin
Speaker 21: as follow as to the defendant in this case, the
Speaker 21: defendant as to come one, The defendant is not guilty
Speaker 21: as to come two. The defendant is not guilty, So say,
Speaker 21: will this fifth day of February twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Five not guilty on both counts? Can you believe that
Speaker 1: it's important to note that the jury was made aware
Speaker 1: of Colin's previous claim of murder by self defense, they
Speaker 1: just weren't told it was his other parent. I wonder
Speaker 1: if that would have made a difference. Also, I'm not
Speaker 1: meaning to sound sexist here, but I so very much
Speaker 1: wonder about the gender breakdown of that jury. I'll have
Speaker 1: to look into that, but I'm assuming it was made
Speaker 1: up of mostly women. I guess look it up yourself
Speaker 1: if you want to play. Regardless, a jury of so
Speaker 1: called peers acquitted him. Colin killed both of his parents
Speaker 1: and was deemed not responsible and not a threat. Nuts right.
Speaker 1: His family, though, that I assume knows him best, has
Speaker 1: different opinions.
Speaker 18: Oh No, I don't think this was a self defense thing.
Speaker 18: I think this was he snapped and lost it thing.
Speaker 6: That's what I think.
Speaker 19: I think he clearly just didn't want to go home
Speaker 19: to mom and this was the last straw. And you're right,
Speaker 19: I think he snapped and unfortunately he's going to have
Speaker 19: to deal with the consequences, and unfortunately, you guys are
Speaker 19: gonna have to.
Speaker 4: Deal with the consequences too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he needs to be at the end of a
Speaker 2: rope that we don't use the rope in Florida.
Speaker 1: So Colin was released from jail later that evening. The
Speaker 1: sun had already set. Outside, news cameras waited for him. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Colin strolled out of the front doors. He was wearing
Speaker 1: black rimmed glasses and a stoic expression. He wore a
Speaker 1: white dress shirt with no tie and khaki pants without
Speaker 1: a belt. His boat shoes muffled his hurried steps as
Speaker 1: he stared straight ahead. He walked with a practiced gait,
Speaker 1: like a soldier. He purposely ignored the cameras following his
Speaker 1: every move just a few feet away. He was free,
Speaker 1: but he left two dead parents behind. His family was
Speaker 1: convinced he was guilty, but the jury wasn't. As the
Speaker 1: seventeen year old walked into the dark parking lot outside
Speaker 1: the jail, onlookers couldn't help but wonder where he was
Speaker 1: going or if anyone was going to pick him up.
Speaker 1: I guess Colin finally got what he wanted. He was alone,
Speaker 1: completely alone. I'm sure Grandma Susan eventually picked him up.
Speaker 1: She was probably just avoiding the media. But still, that
Speaker 1: final image of Colin walking through the darkness dotted with
Speaker 1: street lights against the backdrop of barbed wire fences is
Speaker 1: an image that stays with me. It's almost poetic, a
Speaker 1: boy without parents, acquitted of murder, stepping out of one
Speaker 1: cage into the shadows of everything he's done. The only
Speaker 1: question now is what he'll do next.
Speaker 2: Colin wanted to become a lawyer. Why, because he wasn't
Speaker 2: going to just stop with two bodies. It's just who's next.
Speaker 1: At the time of this writing, it is unclear if
Speaker 1: the investigation in Oklahoma was reopened. It's also unclear where
Speaker 1: Colin Griffith is presently, having turned eighteen about a month
Speaker 1: after his acquittal. It could be anywhere. He could be
Speaker 1: in your town, living next door, buying groceries at the
Speaker 1: same place you do. Hell, he might even be bringing
Speaker 1: you your groceries on door dash nuts right, did you
Speaker 1: order nuts?
Speaker 2: Did you?
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say about this one,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna end it here. Good luck out there, Colin,
Speaker 1: try not to kill again. Well, we hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: that story, it's going to do it for today. I
Speaker 1: sure didn't anyway. If you do like stories like this,
Speaker 1: head on over to swordscale dot com or check out
Speaker 1: our brand new YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash sword
Speaker 1: and Scale TV. There you can check out our new
Speaker 1: television based show, which is kind of like a podcast,
Speaker 1: but it's got moving pictures. I know it's a little
Speaker 1: complicated to understand all this new fangled technology, but just
Speaker 1: head on over there and subscribe and watch a few
Speaker 1: videos and you'll get it all right until next time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know they could be annoying, but please try to
Speaker 1: not kill your family and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Stay safe, I don't under do not be, don't rest,
Speaker 1: don't the stone Ston